Unknown Gender History: Mary Ann Cotton, English Serial Killer

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Mary Ann Cotton, English Serial Killer - 1873

SEE – an excellent new article: David Wilson, “She poisoned 21 people including her own mother, children and husbands. So why has no-one heard of Britain's FIRST serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton?” Daily Mail (London), Feb. 5, 2012. The article is excellent despite the fact that the headline makes the false claim that Cotton was Britain's first female serial killer. There were, in fact, quite a few well known cases before hers.

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): The Durham Assizes have commenced, before Mr. Justice Archibald and Mr. Baron Pollock. The former, who presided in the Criminal Court, in charging the grand jury, referred to the case of Mary Ann Cotton, who is charged with the murder of no less than four persons. In cases of this kind, his Lordship observed, the jury could not expect direct evidence of the administration of poison, but there were cases for which circumstantial evidence was peculiarly cogent and convincing. True bills were subsequently found in all the cases against the prisoner. His Lordship requested Mr. Campbell Forster to undertake her defence. The trial opens to-day.

[Untitled, The Sun & Central Press (London, England), Mar. 5, 1873, p. 9]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): The series of cold-blooded murders for which Mary Ann Cotton was hanged in Durham Gaol, last Monday morning, are crimes against which no punishment known in history could make way. The woman appears to have been utterly devoid of a sense of the heinousness of her crimes. She rocked the child on her knees to-day, that she was to poison tomorrow. She kept the body of one victim unburied, till she had finished off another, in order to make one funeral ceremony do for the two. Most of her murders were committed for petty gains, as a small policy, or a burial fee; but the last was merely to get a boy out of the way, because he prevented her from going out to work. She killed off husbands and children with the unconcern of a farm girl killing poultry. The woman showed no violent passions. Her conduct provoked no suspicions—until she had cleared her house of every living soul. That such a human creature can grow in the midst of our civilisation, is a deplorable fact to ponder. Mary Ann Cotton appears to have been open to appeals from the gaol chaplain; to have prayed heartily; to have repented. We can only infer from her last moments, that until she had steeped herself to the lips in blood, and had reached the condemned cell, the tinker's daughter never got within reach of lessons that could touch her heart. Her bad passions had unrestrained play; she was ignorant, hard—with no sense save that of self. While we pause in horror over the story of this wholesale murderess, we must remember that society is particeps crimums; and that we should neither pause nor rest till the schoolmaster has reached the heart as well as the brain of every creature born of woman.

[“Mary Ann Cotton.” Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (London, England), Mar. 30, 1873, p. 7]

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Victims:
Husband 1: William Mowbray January 1865.
Husband 2: George Ward – married in Monkwearmouth on Aug. 28, 1865; died Oct. 1866.
her 3½-year-old daughter Mowbray died.
Husband 3: James Robinson married Mary Ann at St Michael's, Bishopwearmouth on 11 August 1867.
Mary Ann Cotton’s mother, 54, died spring of 1867.
Isabella Mowbray, daughter Apr. 1867.
Robinson child – died Apr. 1867.
Another Robinson child – died Apr. 1867.
Mary Isabella, daughter, born Nov., died Mar. 1868.
Margaret Cotton, Frederick’s sister – died Mar. 1870.
Husband 4: Frederic Cotton, married Sep. 17, 1879 – died Dec. 1871.
Frederick Cotton Jr., Step-son – died Mar. 1872.
Robert Cotton, infant – died soon after death of Frederick jr. (Mar. 1872).
Charles Cotton, Step-son – Jul. 12, 1872.

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Chronology:

Oct. 31, 1832 – “Mary Ann Robson was born on 31 October 1832 at Low Moorsley (now part of Houghton-le-Spring in the City of Sunderland), to Michael Robson and Margaret, née Londsale, and baptised at St Mary's, West Rainton on 11 November.” [Wikipedia]
Jan. 1865 – Husband 1: William Mowbray, died.
Aug. 28, 1865 – Husband 2: married George Ward in Monkwearmouth.
Oct. 20, 1866 – George Ward dies.
Oct. 1866 – 3½-year-old daughter Mowbray dies.
Nov. 1866 – James Robinson, Pallion, Sunderland, widower, hires Mary Ann as a housekeeper.
Aug. 11, 1867 – Husband 3: James Robinson married Mary Ann at St Michael's, Bishopwearmouth.
Spring 1867 – Mary Ann Cotton’s mother, 54, dies.
Apr. 1867 – Isabella Mowbray, daughter dies.
Apr. 1867 – Elizabeth Robinson, child, dies.
Apr. 1867 – James Robinson, child, dies.
Mar. 1868 – Mary Isabella, daughter, born Nov., dies.
Jun. 18, 1869 – Their second child George Robinson, born.
Mar. 1870 – Margaret Cotton, Frederick’s sister, dies.
Sep. 17, 1879 – Husband 4: Frederic Cotton, married.
Dec. 1871 – Frederic Cotton dies.
Mar. 1872 – Frederick Cotton Jr., step-son, dies.
Mar. 1872 – Robert Cotton, infant – died soon after death of Frederick jr. (Mar. 1872)
Jul. 12, 1872 – Charles Cotton, step-son, died.
Jan. 10, 1873 – “the trial was delayed until after the delivery of her thirteenth and final child in Durham Gaol on 10 January 1873, whom she named Margaret Edith Quick-Manning Cotton.”
Mar. 5, 1873 – trial begins.
Mar. 20, 1873 – convicted.
Mar. 24, 1873 – “Mary Ann Cotton was hanged at Durham County Gaol on 24 March 1873 by William Calcraft; she ultimately died, not from her neck breaking, but by strangulation caused by the rope being rigged too short, possibly deliberately.” [Wikipedia]

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Mary Ann Cotton- Nursery Rhyme

Mary Ann Cotton
She’s dead and she’s rotten
Lying in bed with her eyes wide open
Sing? Sing? What song should I sing?
Mary Ann Cotton is tied up in string
Where? Where? She’s up in the air
And now their selling puddings for a penny pair

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